can anyone help this pasta/rice loving family to reduce carb intake please

LilElvis

purpleshoes wrote: »

Ive never been a size 8 in my life. I have to work at keeping my weight down and thats why Paleo has worked for me. Each to their own.

I like carbs as well, but restricting carbs has made me leaner and fitter and I'll continue with it.

Everyone's different - my mum, sister and I are all very slim, but my sister only manages to be a size 8 because she has spent half her life maniacally watching what she eats whilst my Mum and I can stuff down pretty much whatever we want. My sister is (ultra) vigilant about fat, but still eats carbs.

Cutting out the carbs might be the answer to losing weight for some, but it may be that they simply need to reduce the size/type of accompaniment - hence my earlier post re crab linguine versus cream-laden pasta sauce.

lostinrates

supermassive wrote: »

I'm guessing it's down to an increase in apple products and less actual apples.
i think that's part of it...less activity, fewer 'basic meals, and more processed foods.
And to all of those that are mocking the removal of nutrient-deficient carbs... how's keeping them worked out for you so far? Doing well? Achieving those goals with your waist-line? Perhaps your way isn't the correct one, then.

There's actually zero reason you need to replace the pasta with anything and keep the sauce, though. Just replace the meal. A chicken breast, some broccoli, peas & a touch of gravy.
thats a good healthy meal, meat and veg. Personally I'd ditch the peas and gravy and put some more colour on the plate. I think the point is good healthy meals come in more than one variety, and suit different people for different reasons. The ratatouille suggested below would be my favourite, suggestion of all, sadly, I am unable to eat it very reliably, and the best hope of eating it for me is with a carb like bread, or pasta. We actually eat both fairly rarely. I went on a prescribed diet of white carbs at every meal last year and I found that equally as silly and difficult and frankly depressing as suggesting all carbs mean inevitable obesity. ( and it didn't work
Or stick a ratatouille of sorts in the slow cooker... or make a low carb soup or stew.

People are too reliant on 'bulkers' that'll add nothing but stodge to your plate. Bread, mash, pasta, rice... why? It's all stuff that says "I want my stomach to feel full" which is part of the problem. You don't want to feel full with stodge, you want to feel full without it. That takes time to reduce what you're used to eating.

Well, we've gone from saying something is a pitiful amount of pasta to saying its a bulker designed to make one want to feel full. . I think a key here is perhaps.....one doesn't really need to feel ...full at all, what ever one is eating. Merely satisfied. The feeling of being weighed down by carbs is indeed unpleasant. I have, for example, never understood carb laden date food. Or any very heavy romantic meals.......:).

purpleshoes_2

LilElvis wrote: »

Everyone's different - my mum, sister and I are all very slim, but my sister only manages to be a size 8 because she has spent half her life maniacally watching what she eats whilst my Mum and I can stuff down pretty much whatever we want. My sister is (ultra) vigilant about fat, but still eats carbs.

Cutting out the carbs might be the answer to losing weight for some, but it may be that they simply need to reduce the size/type of accompaniment - hence my earlier post re crab linguine versus cream-laden pasta sauce.

My mum is tiny, she cant put weight on, shes 66 and 8 stones 10 and thats heavy for her, shes never had to watch her weight in her life. She can eat junk, she wont put on weight, drink alcohol, wont put on weight.

Im not 8 stones 10, Im far more active than she is. Im a PT, I work out 5 times a week and I dont obsessively count every calorie but if I ate everything I was capable of, Id be massive.

Sometimes it is genetics and thats hard for people to understand when they look at you and think look at the size of you

In my late teens I was slaughtered for being a size 12 when my mates were all a size 8 and I was 9 stones with a healthy BMI

Kim_kim

I have a few tricks, use iceberg lettuce leafs like wraps.

Use grated cauliflower as rice.

Have meat balls in Tom sauce instead of bolaganise & you can eat it with salad or veg instead of pasta.

For a curry have dry chicken tikka with salad or do a tomato based curry with a lentil side dish instead of rice.
Or do a lamb meatball curry & serve with salad.

Carrot & swede mashed, served as mash or a topping for cottage pie.

Moussaka with aubergine slices.

Lasagne with butternut squash slices or courgette slices.

For roasts just have meat & veg.

Stirfrys - no rice, just loads of veg & beansprouts.

Make veg & bean/pulse soups, filling & nutritious.

For breakfasts have omelettes instead of eggs served other ways, then you don't need bread for breakfasts.

Roasted veg instead of roast pots.
Chips made from swede, parsnips or carrots.

fozziebeartoo

I just had cauliflower rice for the 1st time......huge hit!!

:beer:

Lunar_Eclipse

When you eat cauliflower rice, how do you prepare it?

Presumably you cook it (boil?) and then grate it? Or are people eating it raw?

Been wanting to try it for ages. Thank you! :-)

Kim_kim

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

When you eat cauliflower rice, how do you prepare it?

Presumably you cook it (boil?) and then grate it? Or are people eating it raw?

Been wanting to try it for ages. Thank you! :-)

Blitz it in the food processor & then steam it.

Edwardia

meer53 wrote: »

I'm another fan of Slimming World, 2 and a half stones lost in 6 months eating pasta, rice and potatoes whenever i like. It won't be the pasta you're eating which is affecting your weight, it's what you eat with it. Pasta is fat free.

:eek:

Pasta is fat free until you eat it. Then, as the body digests it, the carbohydrate becomes glucose (sugar). If your body doesn't use the energy, it will be stored.. as fat.

Diets don't work long term. If you cut portion sizes or eat fewer meals or eat strange combos of food or fast two days a week you will lose weight. But the hard part is keeping it off, longer term. people think I'll have that pasta, once won't hurt or two biscuits won't hurt and soon they've relaxed back into the old eating habits.

What works is changuing your eating habits, eating proper food not processed, not overeating, keeping the carbs in check as well as sugar (sugar is 50% glucose, pasta and rice become 100% glucose).

The more sugar and carbs you eat, the more your body has to crank out insulin to drive the glucose out of your blood into your cells. But as well as acting like a key to allow glucose into cells for energy, insulin allows your body to hold onto fat.

Before synthetic insulin was made, people with Type 1 diabetes died, because no matter how much they ate they couldn't retain weight.

So the fewer carbs and less sugar you eat, the less insulin your body needs to pump out. High levels of insulin keep that fat on. High levels of glucose can give you diabetes.

People don't feel full despite eating lots of carbs because over time their body loses the ability to recognise leptin. If you eat less carbs, in time your leptin becomes recognisable to the brain again. For part of it's journey from the brain, leptin uses the same pathway as insulin and if there's a lot of that it doesn't work properly.

Forty years ago Ancel Keys did some really flawed research without using computers, without testing that all permutations of his hypotheses actually worked ie using linear reggression. He also cherry-picked 7 out of 27 countries yo get the result he wanted. He convinced the American government to back his research that fat was the enemy. It isn't - fat doesn't become fat.

[Deleted User]

It seems to me that 'healthy diet' rules are in chaos now. Its always been a bit conflicting when you read dietary advice.., you read in one place that something is bad for you, and another that research suggests its good for you! Now they've decided that the much quoted research suggesting fats like butter were complete doom for you is false.., then there's the currently much talked about 'protein keeps you fuller for longer than carbs' stuff in the media. I am completely confused. More than ever before.

I'm a complete carb fiend. I'm a diabetic and in the 80's a high carb low fat diet was the feted one. I've followed it ever since. If I needed to lose weight, I cut out protein and fats. It always worked. I always had slight problems controlling my blood sugars but that was due to other things not the diet.

However I have been trying to make changes because over the last year I have put on weight. Enough to need to lose it. I have also (now I am 50) in the last year had problems with high blood sugars not easily reduced by my insulin injections so had to reduce my carb intake and increase exercise. My metabolism seems to have changed.

I have however, due to the cost of meat, always stretched it as far as it would go. Pasta sauce.., 500g of meat and every veg including courgettes I can put in the pot. It usually lasts a family of three or four for at least two or three servings each. Now though, I am very careful with carbs too.., and add a portion of salad to the meal. It seems to be quite filling.

Most of our foods I cook from scratch so I know what we are eating.., there's so much added sugar and fat in precooked foods.

And yes, both me and my 19 year old are losing weight although he's not overly impressed with me only having diet coke or flavoured low sugar water in the house (I never drank this stuff but he wouldn't drink anything else but he has ASD).

So according to the stuff in the media, I'm doing all the wrong things.., but we are losing weight. I've cut down on everything except veg, not just proteins and fat and increased our exercise.,. and we are losing weight. Our dogs help with this .., I have a German Shepherd and taking him out for a walk with our batty spaniel uses more musles than any gym workout ha ha!

fozziebeartoo

I put it in the food processor and it comes out looking like grains!

Into a bowl, cover with cling, pierce, microwave.

Most instructions say 7 mins.

I did a HUGE cauli and did 10 mins,

That's it.

Taste-wise it was great but did have it with curry.

Fart-wise the next day.......no comment

I wish we had tried it when I 1st read about it.

Going to try cauliflower pizza base next!!

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

When you eat cauliflower rice, how do you prepare it?

Presumably you cook it (boil?) and then grate it? Or are people eating it raw?

Been wanting to try it for ages. Thank you! :-)